The disclosed embodiments relate generally to print-related workflows and, more particularly, to a prepress workflow automation architecture with enhancements that enable full automation of heterogeneous print-related work.
Workflow programs, such as Xerox's FreeFlow™ Process Manager can be used to automate document preparation and eliminates steps from the production process. Associated software can be used to handle a wide range of demanding and complex print jobs. As is known, workflow programs can be used to lower the cost of performing prepress operations. Prepress can include a wide variety of operations ranging from preparing camera ready materials for printing to page layout, and proofreading. By reducing the amount of manual labor associated with performing prepress operation, workflows can improve the efficiency of the entire print production process.
A number of print shop workflow products on the market aim to deliver automation by taking current work processes and making them more efficient. In one known approach, a prepress operator reviews each job, specifies processing parameters and submits the job for automated execution. It has been observed that fully automated production is often reserved for only the most homogeneous work, and that automated print related production is the exception rather than the rule. Hence, the level of true automation that a print shop can achieve may often be based on the homogeneity of the encountered workload (e.g., a book publisher can achieve higher automation levels than a general color graphics print shop because they have a more homogeneous workload). While it is understood that automation techniques can, for example, allow a person in a typical prepress department to handle 50-60 jobs per day (as opposed to the more typical 25-30), this type of automation is not necessarily suited for permitting an operator in a prepress department to handle 250-300 jobs per day. In order to handle such high volume of work (with a fairly heterogeneous workload), operator intervention would need to be the exception rather than the rule.
Prepress automation systems may provide a mechanism for the end user to sequence prepress operations together in a workflow that can then be automatically executed against a given job. These workflows, as implemented in products such as AC&C HSH's PuzzleFlow or EFI's OneFlow® are very linear and are typically programmed manually for every job. Referring to FIG. 1, an example of a workflow from PuzzleFlow is shown. Note that, with the implementation of FIG. 1, any deviation from the mainline workflow path involves resource consumption or archiving of intermediary files. Aside from that, all workflows of the type shown in FIG. 1 are believed to follow a straight-line path through production. As such, these prepress automation systems have limited ability to provide true “lights out” automation. While an operator might become highly efficient using these tools, corresponding systems do not appear to provide automated production in which operator intervention is the exception rather than the rule.
Prepress automation systems may use certain features, such as “conditional branching,” to partially automate prepress workflows. Conditional Branching represents a fundamental shift in the way work gets done in prepress. Instead of enabling a workflow in which the prepress operator touches every job, Conditional Branching contributes to a workflow in which the automation system handles most jobs without operator intervention and the prepress operator touches jobs only by exception. Examples of Conditional Branching arrangements have been implemented by way of Gradual's powerSWITCH, Enfocus PitStop Automate and Automate's full-featured sibling ArtWork System's OdyStar. It will be appreciated by those skilled in the art that use of Conditional Branching (or automated routing) alone cannot provide a fully automated prepress workflow.
“Adaptive Processing” is a workflow related feature permitting at least one prepress workflow operation to be adaptively modified during execution based on evaluation of certain pre-stored information. Referring specifically to U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20060126119 (published on Jun. 10, 2006), the pertinent portions of which are incorporated herein by reference, a system (with controller and memory) can be programmed to automatically select media based on associated signature dimensions. As part of evaluating media, the controller can gather a list of media currently available for a print engine and automatically determine which subset of media should be used to print the print job. Another example of adaptive processing, particularly well suited for use in the area of imposition lay out, is disclosed in U.S. Patent Application Publication No. 20070201045 (published on Aug. 28, 2007), the pertinent portions of which are incorporated herein by reference.
A “job ticket” may be used to drive several aspects of a prepress workflow. As is known, job submission includes the receipt of a job by the print shop and the entering of the job into the print shop production system or workflow. Typically the instructions from the customer are provided in a format known as a job ticket. It is common for such ticket to be provided in electronic form. In many instances, the relationship between an input job ticket and a corresponding internal job representation is mostly fixed. Even a few know systems that allow sophisticated customization of job tickets, such as PressSense and Omnium, take a limited view of the information used to populate the internal job ticket. Omnium, for example, appears to work with just JDF job tickets and will not look elsewhere in an associated system for information that needs to be reconciled with the JDF input. While one available system, namely powerSWITCH, does permit the harvesting of information from a multiple sources (via the PDFSpy, JDFSpy and XMLSpy process nodes), it does not appear to provide any mechanism for reconciling such harvested information into a single job ticket.
In one aspect of the disclosed embodiments there is disclosed a system for developing a print job. The system includes: a processor; a print job workflow, communicating with the processor, the print job workflow defining a plurality of print job prepress development operations to be performed with respect to the print job, the plurality of print job prepress development operations being arranged in a print job prepress development path, wherein at least one of the print job prepress development operations is operatively associated with a parameter and programmed to perform adaptive processing with the parameter; a memory for storing a job ticket, the job ticket including a set of print job related information, said memory comprising one or more programming instructions that, when executed, instruct the processor to: (1) execute each prepress development operation in the print job prepress development path, (2) pursuant to said executing each prepress development operation, determining whether the print job prepress development operation to be executed comprises the at least one of the print job prepress development operations, (3) if the print job prepress development operation to be executed comprises the at least one of the print job prepress development operations, then adaptively using the parameter, along with a subset of the set of print job related information, to perform adaptive processing with respect to the at least one or the print job prepress development operations, and (4) if the print job prepress development operation to be executed does not comprise the at least one of the print job prepress development operations, then execute the print job prepress development operation to be executed without performing any adaptive processing.
In accordance with another aspect of the disclosed embodiments there is disclosed an automated print prepress workflow for developing a print job for execution in a printing system at a selected runtime. The automated print prepress workflow includes: memory; a processor communicating with the memory; a job ticket stored in the memory, the job ticket including a plurality of print job related parameters and a set of print job related information; a conditional branching arrangement communicating with the processor, the conditional branching arrangement defining a plurality of print job prepress development paths, each one of the plurality of print job prepress development paths including one or more print job prepress development operations; wherein prepress development of the print job includes automatically branching to one of the plurality of print job prepress development paths, responsive to the processor reading one or both of the (1) the one or more of the plurality of print job related parameters and (2) at least part of the print job related information set, to execute each one of the one or more print job prepress development operations; and wherein, during execution of at least one of the one or more print job prepress development operations, said at least one of the one or more print job prepress development operations is automatically adaptively processed.
In yet another aspect of the disclosed embodiments there is disclosed a method for developing a print job. The method includes: storing a job ticket in memory, the job ticket including a set of print job related information; instructing or causing a processor to perform the following: (1) execute each prepress development operation in a plurality of print job prepress development operations, the plurality of print job prepress development operations being arranged in a print job prepress development path, wherein at least one of the print job prepress development operations is operatively associated with a parameter and programmed to perform adaptive processing with the parameter, (2) pursuant to said executing of each prepress development operation, determining whether the print job prepress development operation to be executed comprises the at least one of the print job prepress development operations, (3) if the print job prepress development operation to be executed comprises the at least one of the print job prepress development operations, then adaptively using the parameter, along with a subset of the set of print job related information, to perform adaptive processing with respect to the at least one of the print job prepress development operations, and (4) if the print job prepress development operation to be executed does not comprise the at least one of the print job prepress development operations, then execute the print job prepress development operation to be executed without performing any adaptive processing.
In another aspect of the disclosed embodiments there is disclosed a method for developing a print job for execution in a printing system at a selected runtime. The method includes: storing a job ticket in memory, the job ticket including a plurality of print job related parameters and a set of print job related information; automatically branching to one of a plurality of print job prepress development paths, each one of the plurality of print job prepress development paths including one or more print job prepress development operations, said automatic branching being responsive to said processor reading one or both of the (1) the one or more of the plurality of print job related parameters and (2) at least part of the print job related information set; executing each one of the one or more print job prepress development operations in the one of the plurality of print job prepress development paths; and pursuant to executing at least one of the one or more print job prepress development operations, automatically adaptively processing the at least one of the one or more print job prepress development operations.